“Forgive yourself. Let go of the failures. Of the self-doubt. Of the grief over Graham. Of everything you’ve been beating yourself up over.” He paused. “Set it all down on this green . . . and forgive yourself.”
38
I’m not sure how long I stood on the green of the ninth hole of Twickenham Country Club. It could have been thirty minutes. It could have been three hours. I lost all track of time. Eventually, I sat down on the damp dew-stained grass, crossed my legs, and bowed my head.
And I cried.
I prayed and asked God to forgive my sins.
I cried some more.
And then, somewhere in the darkness, I took my father’s final advice. I closed my eyes and spoke the words out loud.
“I forgive you, Randy. You’ve made mistakes. You’ve failed. I forgive you.”
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
I forgive me.
39
When I opened my eyes, I was sitting behind the wheel of my car. Fierce light shone through the front window, and I had to shield my face from the glare.
I glanced at the clock on the dash. It was three in the afternoon. How long have I been sitting here? I looked around the parking lot, and it was almost as empty as it had been when I arrived over five hours ago.
Masters Sunday, I thought. Everyone was probably at home glued to their television sets, watching Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros battle it out for world golf supremacy.
I took a deep breath and whispered the last thing I could remember about my round with Dad. “I forgive me.”
Then I smiled. I noticed that my keys were in the ignition, and I cranked the car to life. I pulled out of the parking lot, going over everything I had learned over the past four days.
Self-control . . . In order to stop beating yourself, you have to learn and practice self-control.
Resilience . . . Be resilient in the face of great adversity.
Belief . . . Believe in yourself and go after what you want.
Forgiveness . . . Forgive the people who have caused you the most hurt. In my case, my dad . . . and myself.
I drove home on autopilot, remembering the smoothness with which Bobby Jones had swung the golf club and the haunting eyes of young Bobby in his hotel room in Scotland before he had gained control of himself. I thought of nine-year-old Ben Hogan, following his father into his parents’ bedroom and watching Chester Hogan shoot himself. Next I saw Arnold Palmer, smashing his opening drive toward the first green at Cherry Hills and charging electricity though the crowd with the boldness of his play and then sitting in the cockpit of his jet. Finally, I remembered my father’s blue eyes.
As I pulled into the driveway, I thought about the Masters. It was the final round, and everyone knew that the Masters didn’t really start until the back nine on Sunday. Which the leaders should be playing right about now . . .
I parked behind Mary Alice’s station wagon and sighed, hoping that my wife wouldn’t be mad at me for essentially disappearing for six hours. But as I walked toward the front door, I was greeted by a surprise. The door shot open, and Davis gazed at me wild-eyed. “Dad, where have you been?” Her voice was breathless, and I saw sweat beads on her forehead.
“At the club. Why? What’s the matter?”
“Randy, you need to come in here right now.” It was Mary Alice. She sounded almost giddy.
“Dad.” A smile lit up my daughter’s face. “You’re not going to believe it.”
Nineteenth Hole
40
On Sunday, April 13, 1986, on an absolutely gorgeous spring day in Augusta, Georgia, Jack William Nicklaus won the Masters.
I got home in time to watch Jack’s final four holes with my wife and daughter. Davis was so nervous that she did push-ups and jumping jacks in between shots. That was why she was sweating. Mary Alice, who had never showed a lot of emotion during a golf tournament, squeezed my hand tight and pulled for Jack as if her life depended on it. We were seeing something that shouldn’t happen. A forty-six-year-old man should not win the Masters.
But yet, there he was, the Golden Bear, dressed in a yellow golf shirt and plaid pants, stalking down the fifteenth hole after a huge drive and chasing Ballesteros and Norman. I’ll never forget the feeling of watching Jack’s second shot on fifteen. It was the first action of the tournament I got to see. The fifteenth hole is a breathtaking par five with water in front of the green and behind it. If a player hits a good drive, as Jack had done, then he can go for the green in two shots, setting up a chance for eagle. As Jack took his stance, I held my breath and heard not a sound, either on the television or in our small den. In the distance, I saw the green and then Jack took his stance. Even on TV, I could tell by the sound of the club hitting the ball that he had caught it pure. And then, like a bear stalking his prey, Jack Nicklaus walked after the ball, as if he were willing it to go exactly where he wanted it.
The ball landed just to the left of the flag and finished about twelve feet away. On the television, announcer Ben Wright screamed in his English accent, “He’s got a chance! He’s got a very good chance!”
I felt adrenaline tingle through my body, and my wife’s hand gripped my own in a death squeeze. I looked at her, and Mary Alice was radiant.
“He’s got a chance.” She repeated the broadcaster’s words, even mimicking the English inflection.
“Since when do you care about golf?” I asked.
“Since my husband’s favorite player decided to make a charge in the final round of the Masters.”
An image of my father’s fist pump from when Jack made the forty-foot snake on the sixteenth hole in 1975 popped into my mind. Is this really happening?
Minutes later, Jack made his eagle putt to climb within two of the lead. On the sixteenth tee box, there was a long wait, as often is the case with par-three holes. The sixteenth was a par three over water and had provided a lot of drama in years past in the tournament. As Jack prepared to address the ball, the loud roars gave way to stone silence. Again, even on the television screen, Jack’s shot sounded solid. After hitting the ball, Jack immediately bent down to get his tee, not even looking at the hole.
Seconds later, the ball landed three feet to the right of the hole and then began to spin.
“It’s going to go in!” Davis screamed.
But the ball grazed the edge of the cup, leaving a straight uphill putt for birdie. When Jack made that putt, it sounded like a rock concert had broken out at Augusta. One shot back.
As Jack played the seventeenth hole, Seve Ballesteros, still in the lead, was hitting his second shot to the par-five fifteenth. I didn’t want to root against another player, but I knew that if Seve hit the green, he’d probably make at worst case a birdie. Again, I held my breath. When the Spaniard made contact, I could tell he didn’t like it almost immediately. The ball hooked on a low line and landed in the pond fronting the fifteenth green.
“Unbelievable,” I whispered, looking at Davis, who was covering the sides of her face with both hands and gaping at the television set. Ballesteros went from an easy birdie to having to scramble to make bogey, which he was able to do. Still, with two holes left to play, Jack Nicklaus was tied for the lead.
Jack hit a so-so drive on seventeen that left him with a shot between two trees. He hit the recovery shot well, though, and was able to find the green, about ten feet from the cup. As he addressed his ball, announcer Verne Lundquist whispered what the putt would mean. “This is for sole possession of the lead.”
Below me, Davis had stopped doing push-ups and had wrapped her arms around her knees. Mary Alice had sat down on the couch and clasped her hands together in front of her mouth. I took a deep breath and began to have a hard time controlling my emotions. Here was a person in full possession of all the attributes I had been taught these
last few days. Jack was in total self-control. He had fought bravely to put himself in position to win a major championship at forty-six years old, enduring the wisecracks that his clubs were rusty and the quips about his huge putter blade. He had faced that adversity down and pushed through it. The man radiated confidence and believed in his own abilities and here he was, going for it. I’d also heard the announcers mention a bogey that he’d made on the twelfth hole that could have derailed Jack’s round, but he had forgiven himself for that mistake and pushed forward.
Jack struck the putt, and as the ball was halfway there, it looked like it was going to miss to the right. And then Jack stepped toward the ball and began to raise his putter with his left hand. The ball remarkably held straight, and Lundquist said, “Maybe . . .”
When the ball found the bottom of the cup, the announcer yelled, “Yes, sir!”
As Jack played the eighteenth hole, I sat beside my wife on the couch and put my arm around her. As I breathed in the familiar scent of her perfume, I began to cry. I thought of what I had almost done a few days before. A vision of the river from the Tennessee River Bridge came into my mind, and a tear formed. If Darby Hays hadn’t come to see me . . .
“Randy, are you okay?”
I wiped my eyes and smiled at her.
“Dad?” Davis had begun doing push-ups again but had stopped when she heard her mother’s question.
“I’m fine. I’m just . . . happy.” I nodded as I said a word I hadn’t uttered in a very long time. I wrinkled my face in an effort to stop the tears. Then, as if to confirm my feelings, I said it again. “Happy.”
Jack made par on the eighteenth hole. After sinking his final putt, he hugged his son Jackie, and they walked off the green together. By this point, Mary Alice and I were both crying, and Davis was also wiping her eyes. It was the most perfect sports moment I had ever seen.
Thirty minutes later, Greg Norman’s late charge ended with a bogey on the last hole, and Jack had done it. He’d won the Masters for the sixth time.
* * *
—
Mary Alice, Davis, and I were quiet during the post-tournament ceremony, where the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club presented the green jacket to Jack Nicklaus. Given what I’d experienced in the last four days, ending with such an emotional tournament, I was exhausted, and it seemed that my daughter and wife were also drained.
But as the prior year’s champion placed the coat around Jack’s shoulders, I knew there was something I had to do. I rested my hand on my wife’s knee and leaned toward her. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?” she asked, gazing up at me.
“For checking out after Graham’s death. For not being stronger.” I paused. “For everything. Can you forgive me?”
Her lip trembled and she nodded. Then, moving closer, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheek. “I love you, Randy,” she said, her voice soft, her breath warm on my ear.
“I love you too.”
I started to pull away, but she held tight to my shoulders. “Maybe tonight,” she said, “after Davis goes to bed, we can . . . you know . . .”
“What?” I asked, not getting it immediately. I looked into her brown eyes and she smiled.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Too long,” I agreed. Then I leaned in and planted a kiss on her lips.
“You guys need a room?” Davis asked in her patented sarcastic teenager voice that couldn’t quite hide her smile.
“Maybe,” Mary Alice said.
“Mom!” Davis yelled.
I began to chuckle and then, seeing that Mary Alice had also gotten tickled, I laughed long and hard. So hard that my sides began to hurt.
When the giggling fit had finally subsided, I moved my eyes from my wife to my daughter and took in a deep breath. As I slowly exhaled, I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
I was not dead and no longer wanted to be. I was alive and grateful for my life, as messy as it was.
Thank you, Darb, I thought, and then I bowed my head. Thank you, God.
I wasn’t Joe Namath and I never would be. I was Randall James Clark. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and looked up at my daughter and wife.
And I’m okay with that.
41
Fourteen months after Jack Nicklaus won his sixth green jacket, I stood on the first tee of Turtle Point Country Club in Killen, Alabama. I had butterflies in my stomach and had barely touched my bowl of cereal at the hotel breakfast bar that morning. I pulled the three wood out of the bag and ran my fingers along the Golf Pride grip that I had installed last week. It felt tacky and good in my hands. Then I looked up and watched the player on the tee. Her name was Briana Proud, and her long, fluid swing and thick black hair reminded me of LPGA legend Nancy Lopez. This would be the third day that we’d played with her, and she was leading the tournament by two shots.
As Proud sized up her shot from behind the ball, I leaned forward and whispered, “Just like yesterday. Hit the ball solid. Play our draw. That should put us on the left side of the fairway with a wedge.” Then I patted my daughter on the back and gave her neck a squeeze. “Regardless of what happens, I’m proud of you. The Southern Junior Amateur is a hard tournament to qualify for, much less have a chance to win.”
Davis looked up at me with her grandfather’s blue eyes. She wore a white cap and her ponytail stuck out of the opening in the back of it. She’d grown a good four inches in the last year, and her tall, skinny frame produced a smooth and powerful golf swing. “I’m five shots back, and I’m not as good as this girl, Dad. She’s beaten me each day we’ve played with her.”
I gave her neck another tug. “It’s not your job to beat her. You be you and play the best you can play. Focus on your game and keep your mind calm.”
“Self-control,” she whispered. It was a mantra we had developed during my caddying for her this summer.
“Stay in control of your emotions and don’t beat yourself,” I uttered my part.
“Resilience,” she said, her voice quiet and firm.
“Face adversity head on and don’t run from it.”
“Believe in myself and take risks.”
“Go for it,” I said.
She smiled. “Go for it.” Then, the grin gone, she added, “Forgive my mistakes.”
“Set them down and move on.”
For a moment, we stopped our quiet chatter as Proud addressed the ball. She waggled her club, stared down the target, and then launched a high cut with what looked like a five wood down the left side of the fairway.
“Nice shot,” Davis and I both said at the same time.
Davis looked at me, and I handed her the three wood. “Good luck, champ.”
She took the club but held on to my hand. “Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m proud of you too.”
I cocked my head at her.
“I mean it,” she continued. “Our family was on the verge of falling apart last year, but you saved us.”
I smiled. “I had a lot of help from Ellie Timberlake. If she hadn’t offered me another chance at a partnership and we hadn’t had those two big settlements before the end of the year . . .”
“That was risky going with Ms. Ellie after being with the firm for so long,” she said. “You put everything you’ve been teaching me this summer into practice, and you did it.”
“I had a lot of support from you and your momma.” I paused, thinking back to Christmas Eve, when I’d snuck up behind Mary Alice and Davis while they were wrapping presents in front of the tree and held the release from the hospital in front of my wife’s angelic face. “It’s over,” I whispered in her ear.
Mary Alice had read the first few words of the document and then her chest began to heave. She looked at me, her eyes glistening. “You did it,” she said.
>
“We did it,” I corrected, hugging her tight. That night, my mother had brought over her famous egg custard pie, which did indeed make everything better, and we’d celebrated in style. I even read “’Twas the Night before Christmas,” hoping that my daughter might one day think of me when she read this story to her own kids as I thought of my own father.
Davis squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the present. Then she let go and took a couple of steps backward, still gazing at me, her face breaking into a mischievous smile. “You think any more about what I mentioned last night?”
I smirked at her. “Just hit the ball, will you?”
But she continued to gaze at me. “Senior tour, baby. You’ll be fifty in what, nine years? Maybe we’ll both be pro golfers then.”
I shook my head and pointed at the fairway. “Hit.”
She laughed, and the sound warmed my heart. Then she turned and placed her tee in the ground. While she sized up her shot, I tingled with pride, love, and something else perhaps even more powerful.
Gratitude.
In the months since I’d received the four lessons bestowed upon me by the ghosts of Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, and my father, I had added a fifth that I thought might be equal in importance.
I was grateful.
For the gift of life and all its mysteries, challenges, and wonders.
For my wife, Mary Alice, my best friend and soulmate.
For my daughter, Davis, who was becoming a woman before my eyes.
For my son, Graham, whom we lost to cancer but not before he left us so many precious memories.
For my mother, whose unconditional love was something I’d never take for granted again.
For my father, whose words burned my soul but whose love, support, and toughness made me the man I am.
And for God, in whom I have a renewed faith. How else could I ever explain the miracle that was given to me?
The Golfer's Carol Page 17